Panasonic wows with super tablet

Panasonic has managed to take the cake for creating a tablet which has more bells and whistles on than it than a Morris Dancing convention in Norfolk.

At CES 2014, Panasonic debuted its Toughpad 4K UT-MA6 tablet, the 20-inch screen sports a resolution of 3840 x 2560 pixels. Meant for graphic artists and designers, the tablet starts at $5,999. The tame Apple press pointed out that was enough to buy 14 iPad Airs, and have money left over. It is a rare day when the Tame Apple Press can complain that something else is too expensive.

However it is a brilliant tablet. It has a magnesium alloy case and glass-fibre bezel and back, which provides a measure of protection, as it is able to survive drops from 2.5 feet. Moreover, these materials bring the overall weight of the tablet to 5.6 pounds, while keeping it just 0.49 inches at its thickest.

Unlike other tablets it also can do some thinking. It has a 2.1-GHz IntelCore i7-3687 processor with vPro, 16GB of RAM, Nvidia Quadro K1000M graphics, and a 256GB SSD. A built-in battery provides up to 2.5 hours of juice. Ports include USB 3.0, Ethernet, a docking connector and a DisplayPort which itself is capable of 4K output.

You can get a slightly cheaper model which costs $5,999, has a 1.9-GHz Intel Core i5-3437U GHz vPro Processor, an NVIDIA GeForce GT 745M GPU and 8GB of RAM. It also lacks a rear-facing camera and the DisplayPort.

It is hard to see who would bother buying it, but you really have to admire the technology.